QMI Agency

A three-year-old girl who survived 11 days in a Siberian forest was saved after her puppy led rescuers to her.

Karina Chikitova's mother thought the girl had gone with her father to his home village on July 29, but discovered four days later her daughter was missing, the Siberian Times reported.

While lost, Chikitova survived on wild berries and river water in the remote Sakha Republic, which is roamed by bears and wolves.

When the little girl's dog returned to the village, rescuers said they feared the worst.

"If she was to hug her puppy, we thought, this would have given her a chance to stay warm during nights and survive," Afanasiy Nikolayev, a spokesman for the Sakha Republic Rescue Service, told the paper. "So when her dog came back we thought, 'That's it.'"

But the puppy led rescuers to Chikitova, who "looked surprisingly well," Nikolayev said.